A framework for physics-driven generation of feature data for strain-based damage detection in aerospace sandwich structures

In recent years, structural health monitoring has been increasingly applied to composite sandwich structures, as typically used in aerospace applications. In addition, machine learning approaches are increasingly popular for damage detection, localization and size estimation, due to their great advantages in pattern recognition and anomaly detection. However, a major disadvantage of machine learning techniques is that these algorithms generally require large amounts of realistic data. In general, these data are expensive or even impossible to obtain within a feasible time. In order to overcome this hindrance, this work introduces a computationally inexpensive framework for physics-driven feature generation of strain data for the training of ML-based SHM methods using sub-structuring and the concept of reanalysis. First, the global FE model is subdivided into a monitored part, i.e., a smaller submodel, and a global model. Second, the stiffness matrix of the submodel is extracted from the finite element software. Then, static condensation is performed to further reduce the computational effort. Afterwards, selected eigenvectors are derived in terms of displacements of master nodes and the corresponding strains are calculated. Finally, a statistically varied linear combination between the different characteristic eigenvector load cases is performed based on the superposition principle. This procedure enables the efficient generation of a large number of different physics-driven determined strain solutions for a subsequent training of a ML algorithms. The proposed framework is evaluated by means of a damage detection approach, based on an artificial neuronal network classifier algorithm. The applied approach utilizes strain measurements from selected positions as physical quantity and is demonstrated using a composite sandwich structure imitating an aircraft spoiler. The key principle of the damage detection algorithm is based on the fact that a change in the relationship between sensors indicates the presence of damage. Additionally, to the numerical healthy strains resulting from the framework, synthetically generated damage data are used for training the neuronal network classifier. The synthetic data are obtained by statistical modifications of the healthy strains, to avoid time-consuming and expensive damage simulations. The feature generation framework and health monitoring approach are validated using experiments and numerical simulations of a glass fiber reinforced polymer sandwich structure with a hole considered as damage. The presented numerical and the experimental results clearly show the high potential for the efficient approach for damage detection in a sandwich structure.